This type of apparatus serves to facilitate the delivery work in metallurgical vessels, to reduce the delivery time, and to increase the lining capacity. These requirements can only be met by means of a continuous transport flow of the bricks via horizontal and vertical brick conveyor lines. Furthermore, through automation of the brick transport there is to be a saving in workmen and/or workmen are to be freed for work on the platform.
DE-OS No. 15 33 903 discloses an annular work platform which is automatically adjustable in height, whereby the work platform is retractable to approximately the distance between mill floor and vessel bottom opening. Here, the vertical brick conveyor line consists of an elevator cabin conveying the bricks in loads to the working platform.
According to the older unpublished DE patent application No. P 29 14 651.8, it has been suggested to form a vertical brick conveyor line by attaching brick supports to one or several chains leading around sprocket wheel pairs. The chains together with their brick support plates are arranged, by means of guide elements attached to a frame in pairs, in the form of a chain storage extending horizontally in the area of the lower sprocket wheel storage rack. Furthermore, the chain storage extending horizontally may also be connected to the vehicle carrying the lining apparatus.
When using infinite chains leading around sprocket wheels pairs, the lining apparatus for metallurgical vessels, particularly for steel mill converters and/or blast furnaces has the disadvantage of great heights in the conveying of bricks. Another problem of such lining apparatus results from the method of operation in metallurgical vessels of placing rows of bricks progressively from bottom to top. This method of operation requires intermittent adjusting in height of the work platform which does not present any problem due to the use of telescope hoisting elements, however, it does present a problem in view of the vertical brick conveyor line, to which so far no solution has been found.
It is the object of the invention to adjust vertical brick conveyor lines formed by chains for lining apparatuses of metallurgical vessels with automatically height-adjustable working platforms to the constantly varying heights.
The invention solves this problem by leading infinite parallel pairs of chains, designed for a maximum brick conveying height, during their run-off course around several pairs of coaxial sprocket wheels, by arranging the sprocket wheel pairs at the minimum distance of their diameters or further removed from each other, their axles resting on a frame, whereby two neighboring sprocket wheel pairs each are coordinated with a sprocket wheel pair with a movable axle arranged in a guide, adjustable in the sense of a reduction or increase in the length of the storage at a distance to the neighboring sprocket wheel pairs, and whereby the brick supports are attached to the chains from the outside or from the inside circumventing the sprocket wheel diameters of a sprocket wheel pair. Such a design has the advantage of regulating the vertical length of the vertical brick conveying line depending upon the respective level of the working platform, although the brick supports present an obstacle when using a chain storage.
The invention provides that the brick supports are essentially arranged between the sprocket wheels of a sprocket wheel pair. Such spatial division (distribution) does not interfere in particular with the presence of the brick supports in the chain storage.
The distance of the coordinated sprocket wheels in the sense of a shortening or lengthening of the useful length of chain (vertical brick conveyor line) may be varied so that the movably arranged axles of the adjustable sprocket wheels are provided with traction elements, e.g. weights, tension springs, or the thrust rod of a straight motion drive whose housing may be flexibly hinged, if required.
The capacity of the chain storage as per invention may also be increased. To this end it is suggested that the adjacent sprocket wheel pairs, arranged in a row, and situated so that their axles are displaceable in a common guide.
The axles of the coaxial sprocket wheel pairs may also be moved in a straight line, whereby the common guide, according to another improvement of the invention, consists of a straight rail guide.
The arrangement of the chain storage within the lining apparatus may, depending upon the distance betwen the mill floor and the vessel opening, be such that the adjacent and/or opposite sprocket wheels forming the chain storage, together with the chain, form a meander shape extending horizontally or vertically.
With regard to the horizontal plane, the lining apparatuses in general are limited with respect to their interior surface due to the telescope screw jacks carrying the lift platform. It is therefore advantageous if, according to another improvement of the invention, the sprocket wheels forming the chain storage are arranged in a space between opposite telescope screw jacks for the annular working platform which is adjustable in height.
Furthermore provision is made that all sprocket wheels are seated in a frame which is separate from the frame for the lining apparatus.
Finally, it is suggested in addition to a separate chain storage that the frame for the sprocket wheels may be taken out of the frame of the lining apparaus. Thus, the invention makes possible a subsequent installation into existing lining apparatuses built up on several telescope screw jacks.
An example of the invention is shown on the drawing and explained as follows: